Rising Tide

by Wayne Stinnett

  Tank and Paul were standing on the dock between the two boats as we approached.

  “How’d it go?” Tank asked.

  “Lake Boyz are out of commission,” DJ said. “And MS-13 has lost a bunch of their prostitutes and drug dealers.”

  “What about the gang itself?” Paul asked.

  Since the subject didn’t seem to want to rest until morning, I pulled out my phone. “Let’s find out.”

  Billy answered on the first ring.

  “As always, Kemosabe,” he whispered, “your timing sucks.”

  My instincts went on alert. “What’s wrong, Billy?”

  “Reader’s Digest version,” he said. “I only have a minute. Callie and two other girls, plus a young boy, were taken captive. Callie’s Krav Maga instructor, Eva, who is a fine lady and exceptionally good with a gun, helped me get them out. MS-13’s leaders are all dead. The police arrested us, then let us go. I have some cuts and bruises, which Eva has patched up. She’s in the head getting into something more comfortable and I am resting in her bed.”

  “Jesus, Billy. You had me worried.”

  “You should be,” he said, and I visualized his grin from the tone of his voice. “Eva is an extremely energetic woman.”

  “So, MS-13 is out of commission?”

  “Not completely,” he replied. “They’re new in town, and the whole organization could fall apart without their leaders. Then again, more might come from Miami tomorrow to take their place.”

  “Did any of the tangos go by the name Razor?”

  “Not that I know of,” he said. Then I heard a woman’s voice in the background but couldn’t make out her words. “Gotta go, Kemosabe. You owe me, heap big.”

  I looked down at my phone to find the call had ended.

  I relayed to the others what Billy had told me, leaving out the part about him being with a woman named Eva.

  “In short,” I summarized, “MS-13 in Fort Myers is like a small boat without a rudder and no way to make money to buy a new one.”

  “Think that’s enough?” Tony asked.

  I thought about it for a moment. Billy and Eva had taken out MS-13’s leadership. The gang had only recently become active in the area and that might be enough. But I didn’t think so.

  “It’s a Band-Aid at best,” I said. “Others will join, and new leaders will rise up.”

  “So, what was the point of what we did?” Paul asked, his question a leading one.

  I looked over at Sea Biscuit. Through the hull porthole, I could see into the forward cabin. A nightlight was on and I could just make out Alberto’s form under the covers.

  “We slowed the advance of evil,” I replied, paraphrasing Jack Armstrong’s unwritten mission statement for his organization. “And we protected the innocent, even if only for a little while, and in only one small place.”

  “Think global,” DJ said. “And act local.”

  “Y’all get some sleep,” I said, checking my watch and noting the sun would be up in a couple of hours.

  Tank and I climbed aboard Sea Biscuit and the others headed over to the Revenge. He went up to the bridge for his watch while I stepped below.

  The dinette in the salon had been lowered into a bed on which Chyrel was asleep, the blankets thrown back on the half she wasn’t occupying. Her laptop sat open on the shelf next to the spare bunk, her headphones beside it. And on the screen, a black background with a wall of text was visible.

  I stepped closer. At the bottom of the screen, I read my last words to the group outside: Y’all get some sleep.

  Chyrel hadn’t shut down like I’d told her to. What had happened earlier were events I didn’t want certain others to know about. Savannah, definitely. Chyrel was a team player all the way, but still…

  Reaching across her, I moved my finger on the mouse pad so the menu bar would appear, clicked the Disconnect All icon, then closed the laptop.

  Down the companionway in the aft cabin, I found Savannah asleep in the big queen bed.

  After a quick shower, I got under the covers with my wife. She stirred and put a hand on my chest, nestling her head against my shoulder.

  “We could keep him if we wanted to,” she mumbled sleepily.

  Her eyes were closed and at first, I thought she was talking in her sleep.

  “We qualify as adoptive parents,” she said, her voice clear and fully awake.

  I nuzzled her hair. It smelled like flowers. “Adopt Alberto?”

  “He doesn’t have a mom and dad anymore, Jesse. He needs us.”

  A son?

  I hadn’t been around to raise Eve and Kim, my oldest daughters. And I didn’t even know about Flo until she was a teenager. My grandson, Fred, filled part of the void I felt, but his visits were few and far between.

  A son…

  “We could,” I said, more to myself than Savannah. “But we’ll have to wait and see.”

  She wriggled closer, as if satisfied with my reply. After a minute or two, her breathing became shallow and steady.

  “I wasn’t worried about you,” she mumbled. “Rest now.”

  Light was streaming through the overhead portlights at an angle when I woke up. I blinked my eyes and sniffed coffee in the air.

  The other half of the bed was empty. I got up and pulled on my pants from the previous night, then padded barefoot up the companionway.

  “Look who’s finally up,” Savannah whispered to Alberto. “But don’t say anything to him yet. El Gran Hombre Blanco needs his coffee.”

  Damn, I thought. She’d been privy to nearly all that went on last night.

  Alberto looked at her, puzzled. “Porque le llamas asi?”

  We both turned and looked at Alberto in surprise. He and Savannah were sitting at the dinette that had been Chyrel and Tank’s bed the previous night.

  “Tu hablas español, Alberto?” Savannah asked.

  He spoke Spanish far too fast for me to keep up, but I caught my name at the end. I looked at Savannah questioningly.

  “He said some of his memory returned during the night. Nothing personal about him, though. And he asked when you can be talked to.”

  I went straight to the galley and got a mug from the cabinet, filling it with the dark brown brew from the coffeepot. “Some people think I’m unable to speak without coffee, Alberto. But as you can see, that isn’t quite true.”

  The first sip was good—the second one better.

  “It’s not that he can’t speak,” Savannah said. “He’s just a little grumpy without his java.”

  “Are we going for another boat ride today?” Alberto asked.

  “Do you like boats?” Savannah asked him.

  “Yes,” he replied. “This one is like a big house.”

  I wondered what he was comparing it to. How had he lived before being set adrift by Bumpy? Had Carmel Marco and Alberto’s father been good parents? Had they lived in a house?

  Savannah ruffled his thick black hair. “Sea Biscuit was my home for a long time.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Since before Flo was born,” she replied.

  I sat down at the dinette with them. “We might be going on a really big boat this weekend.”

  “How big?”

  “Bigger than all of my and Savannah’s boats put together.”

  He pointed out the starboard hatch, where a small, coastal cruise ship was tied up. “Bigger than that boat?”

  I looked across the river. The cruise ship had three decks. It wasn’t like the mega cruise ships that hit all the big tourist ports like Miami, Key West, and Nassau. It ran up and down the Florida coast, visiting smaller towns.

  I nodded emphatically. “Almost exactly that size.”

  He smiled broadly.

  Savannah got up. “I’ll get lunch going. Tank and Chyrel are up on the bridge, and I saw DJ stretching over in the cockpit of Gaspar’s Revenge”

  “Have you seen Paul yet this morning?” I asked.

  “He and Tony went for a run,
” she said. “They should be back any time.”

  I followed her into the galley and spoke low. “How much Spanish do you think he remembers?”

  She smiled at me. “He’s as fluent as a native speaker would be. Remember? Paul said most amnesia sufferers retain language skills. Alberto is bilingual.”

  Just then, I saw Tony and Paul running along the sea wall, headed toward the ramp down to the dock.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “You don’t even have a shirt on,” Savannah called after me as I went up to the side deck.

  “Hey, Jesse,” Tony said, as he and Paul walked the last few yards to the boats.

  I dropped down to the dock. “How was the run?”

  “Rough,” he replied. “Paul sets a grueling pace and he got more sleep than I did last night.”

  “Paul, Alberto is suddenly speaking Spanish…like fluently.”

  “He hadn’t before?”

  I shook my head. “No. And I mean rapid-fire Spanish.”

  “That’s probably normal,” he said. “Being bilingual, I would think it would be, anyway.”

  “We know his name now,” I said. “It’s Alberto Marco, not Mar. And we know who his mother was. Both his parents are dead.”

  “And you want to know if it’s safe to divulge that information to him?”

  “Yeah.”

  Paul rubbed his chin in thought for a moment. “Hard to say. But like I told you yesterday, he’s an intelligent child. Why don’t you ask him if he feels like he’s ready to hear some bad news?”

  “That’s it?” I asked. “Just ask him?”

  “Preface it by telling him you’ve learned something of his past that isn’t good. He’ll know if he can take it or not.”

  “Thanks,” I said and turned back toward Sea Biscuit.

  Paul grabbed my arm. “Jesse, wait.”

  I turned back around to face him.

  “How about waiting a bit? Let me get a shower and allow everyone to eat lunch first. I’d like to be there in case he says yes.”

  “Savannah’s making lunch now,” I said. “Why don’t we all meet up on her flybridge. It has the biggest table.”

  I went back aboard Sea Biscuit and told Savannah everything that Paul had told me.

  “I’ll put together a bunch more sandwiches,” she offered.

  “Fifteen minutes,” I said. “Up on the bridge?”

  “That’s the only place we can seat all eight of us. But we’ll need to break out a couple of deck chairs. You go get a shower and get dressed. I’ll handle it.”

  I kissed her on the cheek and hurried down to the aft cabin. It only took me ten minutes to take a quick shower and put on a pair of cargo shorts and a faded Rusty Anchor T-shirt.

  When I got up to the bridge, everyone but Paul was lounging around the big table, eating deli sandwiches. I got two deck chairs out of the storage locker at the back of the bridge deck next to the dinghy and set them up at the empty front end of the table.

  Paul came up the ladder carrying a box. I recognized the custom chess set Pap had made and given to me years ago. It was a hinged wooden box with dark mahogany and white oak squares. When opened, it created a chess board. The pieces inside were all hand carved teak.

  Without a word, Paul opened the box and scattered the chess pieces on the table, then placed the box, velvet side down, next to them.

  He looked at Alberto. “Checkers is such a simple game.”

  Alberto looked up at him, then back down at the pieces scattered on the table. He put his sandwich down on his plate and picked up one of the pieces—a black rook. He placed it at the corner of the board nearest him.

  While it was the correct piece and he’d put it in the right place, it was also the nearest corner to him. So, I didn’t read a lot into it. Paul sat down and picked up the white queen, placing it on the center black square on his back row.

  “That’s not right,” Alberto said, and moved the piece over one. “The queen takes her color.”

  “Oh yeah,” Paul said, with a grin. “I forgot.”

  They played fast as everyone else ate and watched. Paul opened with a queen’s gambit, which Alberto foiled before Paul’s third move—queen to king’s bishop three.

  Paul looked up at me and nodded. “Quite a talented chess player we have here.”

  Alberto smiled and took another bite of his sandwich.

  The game continued until finally, Alberto laid his king over on its side. “You will checkmate in two moves,” he said with a cunning smile. “Can we play again?”

  “Perhaps in a while,” Paul said. “Jesse has something to tell you.”

  Alberto looked at me and I guess the expression on my face erased his smile.

  “We learned some things last night,” I began. “Things about you and your past. I’m afraid some of it might be upsetting for you to hear.” His dark eyes shifted from one of mine to the other, looking for advice in my demeanor. “Do you think you’re ready for me to tell you these things?”

  He subconsciously scooted closer to Savannah; she put an arm around his shoulders. Then his eyes sought DJ’s, but his new friend looked solemn and said nothing.

  Alberto looked back at me and nodded somberly. “Yes. I want to know.”

  “Your last name is Marco,” I began, judging his reaction.

  He nodded again but showed no outward sign that it jarred a memory.

  “Your mother’s name was Carmel Marco and your father was LaBron Green.”

  He stared into my eyes. “Was?” he croaked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I am terribly sorry, Alberto. They are both dead.”

  Tears welled in his eyes, but he wiped them away before they could fall. “My mom and dad are dead?”

  I looked over at Savannah and saw tears in her eyes, as well. She gazed at me, imploringly.

  I knew what she wanted. I wanted it too.

  I nodded.

  “Your mother and father are no longer with us,” she said softly. “But Jesse and I can be your dad and mom. If you want us to be.”

  Alberto looked up at her, then at all the others sitting around the table, finally resting on DJ.

  “You won’t find a better substitute,” DJ said. “Jesse and Savannah can teach you things and show you stuff nobody else in the world can.”

  Alberto looked back up to me.

  “There’s probably a lot of red tape,” I warned him. “The cops will determine if you have any family. They’d be first in line to adopt.”

  “How did my mom and dad die?”

  Behind him, I could see Paul shake his head no. He didn’t think the boy was ready to hear all the details. I decided to be honest but not to tell him everything.

  “Your father was killed in an accident when you were five,” I said. “And your mother died the night you were put on that little boat.”

  The tears flowed and Alberto made no effort to hide them. His lip quivered as he fought for control. Savannah pulled him close and cried with him. The whole group moved nearer, leaning over him. He sobbed for several minutes. I worried that my telling him might bring back bad memories.

  After a moment, he looked up at Paul. “Dad taught me how to play checkers and chess.” Then he looked up at me, sadness etched in his dark brown eyes. “Did the drugs kill my mom?”

  I couldn’t hold it back any longer: the strain caused a great amount of sweat to run down my cheeks from my eyes.

  I took his hand in both of mine. “Yes, Alberto,” I lied. “It was the drugs.”

  An hour after we told Alberto what had happened to his parents, we said goodbye to DJ on the docks.

  “I’ll come down and visit you soon,” DJ told Alberto.

  “We’re going on a big boat this weekend. It’s called Ambrosia.”

  “Better still,” DJ said, kneeling on his good knee. “You’ll love Ambrosia and I visit there pretty regularly.”

  DJ helped untie the lines and we were soon idling out into the Caloosahatchee. S
avannah, Alberto, and I remained aboard Sea Biscuit; Alberto seemed to like it better, and we both wanted to stay close to the boy, so it was just the three of us.

  Tony, Paul, Tank, and Chyrel took the Revenge. They’d go back to the Rusty Anchor, where Chyrel’s car was.

  Once we cleared the high bridge going over to Sanibel Island, we headed out to open water. Tony accelerated a little and the Revenge started to pull away. Then Savannah pushed the throttles forward and the big Grand Banks accelerated, matching Tony’s speed. Alberto sat next to Savannah at the helm, with me across from them on the port bench.

  “Can it go faster?” Alberto asked her.

  “A little,” she replied and pushed the throttles to the stops.

  The boat gathered more speed, and we were soon overtaking the much faster Gaspar’s Revenge.

  “What about that boat?” he asked me, leaning forward, and looking around Savannah.

  Tony was on the Gulf side of us, so I reached over and took the mic, switching the VHF over to the channel I knew the standby radio on the Revenge was tuned to.

  “Hey, Tony,” I said. “Alberto wants to know if that’s all you’ve got. How about making a big circle to starboard? Wide-open throttle.”

  Even from a hundred yards away, I could see Tony’s big, toothy grin. The Revenge had twin MTU 10V2000 M96 engines, manufactured by Rolls Royce for larger yachts. But we had the room and shoehorned them in there a couple of years ago to replace the original 1300 horsepower Caterpillars. The MTUs produced 1500 each.

  The Revenge began accelerating, pulling ahead of us. When she was a quarter mile ahead, Tony turned the wheel, heading out to sea at full speed.

  “Wow!” shouted Alberto.

  Tony kept the wheel over as the distance between us increased. He made a full circle nearly a mile wide, then straightened her up a half mile behind us.

  Alberto turned around in his seat, getting up on his knees.

  “Now watch this,” I said, as the Revenge neared Sea Biscuit’s wake.

  He looked over at me, grinning, then looked back aft, just as the Revenge hit our inside wake. The big Carolina bow flares shot a stream of spray to both sides as the Revenge plowed through. Then she encountered the larger, more tightly packed bow waves. She was traveling at nearly double our speed and huge fountains of white water shot up and out from both sides in rapid succession till she found the calmer waters ahead of our wake.